SUNDAY TEAM THROUGH TO CUP QUARTER-FINALS

Cheers Bar 1, Prestwich 3
Millennium Cup Second Round at Drinkwater Park, Prestwich
Sunday 6th December 2009

Chris Crookes scored a brace after a rare early Richard Steadman goal got Prestwich on their way against Cheers Bar on Sunday. The win sets up a quarter final tie away to the winners of Stainton Sharks and Crown FC.

While it was good for the Sunday lads to finally get a game in following five weeks of postponements, this pitch on Drinkwater Park promised to be a real leveler and were this to have been a league game, it probably wouldn’t have been played.

But with an end-of-season fixture backlog a certainty, all parties agreed to get this second round tie underway.

Prestwich sprang out of the blocks and got an early reward when Shaun Jackson’s cross was powered in to the net off defender Steadman’s smooth head.

On the quarter-hour ‘keeper Mike Hudson, realising the pitch wasn’t the best for an intricate passing game, went route one to striker Crookes who doubled his side’s lead at the second attempt.

But Cheers didn’t roll over and enjoyed their best spell of the match and got a deserved foothold back in the game with a goal line header following a corner on the left.

However, Prestwich hit straight back and good link up play between Dean Higgins and Sean Haslam set up Crookes again to notch his second and the visitors third.

After the break, Pete Lorenzini’s side should have put the game to bed after Haslam was sent tumbling in the box but Crookes slammed the resulting penalty kick against an upright.

Just a minute later, Haslam was himself unlucky to see a goal-bound effort cleared off the line but as legs tired in the boggy conditions, the two-goal advantage proved to be enough to send Prestwich in to the quarter-finals.

PFC: Hudson, Higgins (Gibson), Ward, Lott, Steadman (1), Monetti, McGovern (Hopkins), Comiskey (Barnes), Haslam, Crookes (2), Jackson

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